ICYMI: French Court fines Amazon $4.4m

Intro

A French court has fined the US retailing giant Amazon four million euros ($4.4 million) over terms of use deemed unfair for companies using its online marketplace to sell their goods.

“It’s a record fine” for a suit involving abusive commercial clauses, Loic Tanguy, a director at the DGCCRF, France’s consumer and anti-fraud watchdog, told AFP on Wednesday.

The agency filed its lawsuit in 2017 after a two-year investigation into third-party vendor platforms, which found several clauses potentially unfair to the 10,000 small and midsize French companies selling on Amazon.

They gave Amazon the power to modify contracts at a moment’s notice, demand shorter delivery times or block deliveries while demanding additional corporate information from vendors.